Friday, March 20, 2015

On March 24, 1980, two days after the assassination of Luis Espinal in La Paz, a jeep stopped for a few seconds at the door of the chapel of La Providencia hospital in San Salvador where Mons. Romero was celebrating the Eucharist, and an expert sniper shot him in the chest. Romero fell, bloody and mortally wounded. On the way to the polyclinic, he uttered his last words: "May God forgive them."

Why did they kill Romero? A Salvadoran peasant expressed it simply: "Monseñor Romero told the truth. He defended us poor. And for that, they killed him." One day before his murder, Romero in his Sunday homily at the cathedral had asked and ordered the army in the name of God and the suffering Salvadoran people to stop the repression. Those prophetic words that sum up what Romero had said and done during his three years as archbishop, were undoubtedly the ultimate trigger of his death.

Romero denounced the injustice of the country, the absolutization of wealth by a small oligarchy, the subservience of the military to the oligarchs, American support for an inhumane system, the corruption of justice, the lies of the media, the torture and murder of poor people. His denunciations were accompanied by a call to conversion to the gospel of Jesus, the God of life whose glory is that the poor live.

Romero himself had his "conversion" to the gospel and went from a godly life but one linked to the powerful traditionalist Christians, to a closeness to the God of the poor. The poor, the cry of their suffering, the dead he had to go and collect each week, taught him to read the Gospel, converted him to a faith united with justice.

He didn't lack for difficulties and misunderstandings on the part of his brothers in the episcopate and sometimes even from Rome. He was accused of being naive, a Marxist revolutionary, of fomenting violence. His beatification cause was blocked for years in the Vatican.

Now Pope Francis has unblocked his cause, has acknowledged that Romero died a martyr, and has announced his beatification on May 23, 2015.

This beatification, above and beyond the joy of Salvadoran and Latin American people, confirms that Romero was right, that he was a man of God, a true prophet of the Kingdom, a pastor who not only smelled like sheep but, like Jesus, gave his life for the people. He wasn't a theologian but a pastor who made the faith credible. With Romero, God visited El Salvador and Latin America. His life and death are similar to that of Jesus of Nazareth.

The Salvadoran people have considered him a saint for years. They keep his portrait in their homes, they go pray at his tomb, they give their sons the names "Oscar" and "Romerito". Now Romero is raised to the altars; his life is an example. If being a Christian is living as Romero lived and died, it's worth being a Christian today.

The poem that Brazilian bishop Pedro Casaldaliga wrote 35 years ago is coming true:

Saint Romero of America, our shepherd and martyr, (…),
Poor glorious shepherd, assassinated for money, for dollars, for foreign exchange,(…)
Latin America has already laid you in its glory of Bernini,(…)
nobody will silence your last homily!

A group of "Greeks", probably pagans, approach the disciples with an admirable plea: "We would like to see Jesus." When they communicate it to him, Jesus responds with a vibrant speech in which he summarizes the profound meaning of his life. The time has come. All, Jews and Greeks, will very soon be able to grasp the mystery that lies in his life and in his death -- "When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw everyone to myself."

When Jesus is lifted up on a cross and appears crucified on Golgotha, everyone will know the unfathomable love of God. They will realize that God is love and only love for every human being. They will be attracted by the Crucified One. In him, they will discover the supreme manifestation of the mystery of God.

To do this requires, of course, something more than having heard of the doctrine of redemption. More than attending some religious act of Holy Week. We are to focus our inner gaze on Jesus and let ourselves be moved on discovering in that crucifixion the final gesture of a life given day by day for a more humane world for all. A world that finds its salvation in God.

But probably we begin to know Jesus truly when, attracted by his total surrender to the Father and his passion for a happier life for all his children, we hear his call, albeit faintly -- "Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there also will my servant be."

Everything starts from a desire to "serve" Jesus, to collaborate in his task, to live only for his plan, to follow his footsteps to manifest, in many ways and almost always with meager gestures, how God loves us all. Then we start to become his followers.

This means sharing his life and fate -- "Where I am, there will my servant be." This is being a Christian -- to be where Jesus was, take care of what he took care of, have the goals he had, be on the cross as he was, being one day at the Father's right hand where he is.

What would a Church "attracted" by the Crucified One, impelled by the desire to "serve him alone" and busy with the things he was busy with, be like? How would a Church that would attract people to Jesus be?